MUCH ADO
The right wing vomit tossers are making much ado about SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayer’s Latin heritage and her ownership of a vagina and are claiming that personal experiences {her heritage and her twat along with her womanly “emotions”} prove she will be incapable of rendering impartial opinions as a member of the Supremes.
As America’s foremost expert on the rule of law, Karl Rove, put it, Sotomayer is one of those judges selected “for their readiness to discard the rule of law whenever emotion moves them.”
But as Digby points out:
“One can’t know for sure that the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts, who has so far voted every single time with the ruling elites, was affected by his personal experience as a privileged white male — coddled, groomed and rewarded from his earliest days by the conservative establishment he served — but it certainly isn’t unfair to think he might have been.”
And this whole straw man argument being put forth by the republican frothers that “empathy” and life experience should somehow be disqualifiers for the job of judge are just too ridiculous for words. You can’t help but bring your life experiences to the job of judge — nor should you try to avoid doing so.
I mean, ask yourself this; if the courts handing down the decisions in Plessy v. Ferguson or Dred Scott v. Sanford hadn’t all been comprised of rich, old, white dudes but instead had been made up of people who may have included blacks or, better yet, were slaves at one time, do you think that the decisions rendered in those two landmark cases might have been different?!?!
And if so would our country have been better or worse off because of it?
May 28th, 2009 at 10:42 am
i don’t quite understand what the gop’s game plan is here. are they hoping that if they keep screaming about how she is the most radical radical lefty liberal radical racist radical that ever lived they can somehow force obama to withdraw her nomination? because the way it stands now nothing she could say at her confirmation hearings or any examination of her, you know, actual experience and judical record will ever come close to the portrait they are trying to paint of her as a stupid radical lefty racist radical (and did i mention radical). and if they are trying to intimidate her, well i don’t think sonia-from-the-block is that easily bullied.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Heck, G.W. Bush promoted her to the Federal bench with the approval of the Senate and then Clinton promoted her to Appeals Court and even though some Republicans held up her confirmation for over a year she was approved.
So after two approvals by previous Senates, unless she has some egregious ruling during her tenure I think the Republicans will have a difficult time blocking her without looking racist or sexist.
But I do look forward to watching them dig themselves further into the hole they have created since Bush/Cheney/Rove were in power.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I love the fact that the only time rich white Republican men ever get bent out of shape over racism is when it’s supposedly being directed by a person of color. Because in a country dominated by white men, a Latino woman who dares to suggest that being a minority would in some way shape her views, is automatically a racist.
I also still chuckle over Mike Huckabee referring to her as Maria Sotomayor. Maria, Consuela, Fernanda, Josephina. Close enough.